


repetitions

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bitterness, Chronic Illness, Complicated Relationships, Established Relationship, F/F, Future Fic, Light Angst, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-01-26 06:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12551172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: “I believe Jess mentioned in her message that you had a date approximately—” Rey’s eyes flicked to the chrono. “—twenty minutes ago. What she means to say is we’re all very late to it.”Regaining his equilibrium, Poe frowned at them. “You want to take me on a date?”“It was Rey’s idea.” Jess pointed rather vehemently at him. “I wanted to kick your ass halfway across the star system and back.”





	repetitions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



Poe’s days conformed to a schedule. Wake up, drink two glasses of water immediately, eat a meal that had been especially prepared and balanced by a droid trained in medical nutrition, avoid the Holonet, jog for thirty minutes, go to the driveyard, eat lunch—also prepared by said nutritionist-droid, leave the driveyard, jog for another thirty minutes, come home, have dinner, read a holonovel or something. Who knew, really? By that time Poe was ready to go to bed. And as he fell asleep, he didn’t think too hard about the fact that his life did, in fact, now conform to a schedule.

Rinse.

Repeat.

All day, every day.

All day. Every single day.

For going on, what was it? Two Kuati years. Yeah, that sounded about right. Two years.

Two whole, very long, years.

The one upside to the whole thing was he didn’t have to think too hard about what he was doing. His life now spread out before him in an easily traversable line. There were no mountainous passages, no steep valleys. All stood smooth before him, the miles ahead clear and blue-skied and pristine. Clock in, clock out, go home. The most dangerous thing he faced in a day was the boss’s wrath when he forgot one of those two facts of civilian life. You clocked in and you clocked out. Everything else was spurious.

This particular morning, no different than any others, saw his trusty droid assistant trailing into his office behind him with slightly dimmed ocular sensors and a curious tilt to its head. “What is it?” he asked and when it replied in perfect, clipped Galactic Standard, he didn’t allow himself to think how much nicer it would be to hear the answer in sputtering, whirring binary from a droid he had to crawl around on the ground to even be on eye level with.

“You have a new message,” it said. Its head tilted the other way as the gray-domed stretch of its forehead sparkled under the light. “From one Jessika Pava and—”

Poe’s hand sliced repeatedly through the air at about neck height as he shook his head. The droid may well have noted a spike in Poe’s heart rate and respirations, but it didn’t need to point that out to Poe. He was already well aware of just what his past could wake inside of him. “Delete it, Ensev.”

N-7PO bowed its head and neck and upper body in acknowledgment. “Of course, Poe. I—it seems that I am unable to complete that task as requested. You seem unwell. Is there something I can do to assist?”

Through gritted teeth, he smiled though he didn’t feel particularly happy. “You can delete the message. Whatever it is, I don’t need to hear it.” He already knew what it was likely to say. “Find a splicer to extract it if you have to.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get a hold of him. Just like it wasn’t the first time Rey had tried to get in touch with him either. Where one went, so went the other after all. And Poe was happy for them, but for Poe to be happy with himself, he couldn’t be anywhere near the two brightest women he knew. Or anyone really. But especially them for reasons he chose not to investigate too closely. Poe didn’t have the Force, but he still believed Rey’s long-ago assertion that Jess shone in it, so bright as to be blinding, a storm of energy to be reckoned with. And Rey, Rey didn’t need anyone telling him about her presence in that most mysterious of elements. It was merely known and taken for granted. All anyone had to do was watch her move to see the truth of it.

Once, Rey tried to tell him he was like them. When he flew, she couldn’t tell where he was inside of the roiling presence he’d apparently carved out for himself in the Force. He was a raconteur, a rabble-rouser. He changed the game every time he took to his cockpit. That was what she’d said.

That, especially now, was bullshit, of course. But before, he couldn’t say. All he’d cared about at the time was making a difference. Now, all he could do was stand still, cause as few waves as possible. Even a ripple was too much. Every exertion taxed him in ways he couldn’t begin to anticipate. Even the invocation of Jess’s name was enough to worry him. He’d made a lot of progress out here on Kuat and at a great price. He didn’t need to backslide. Not after all the work he’d done and all the sacrifices he’d made.

“There is a secondary message, Poe,” N-7 continued. Apparently Jess had gotten deep into its programming with this message.

Great. Just—perfect.

“That’s nice, En,” Poe said, pleasant. It wasn’t the droid’s fault after all. He retrieved his datapad from inside his desk and allowed the holographic HUD to flash into blue-tinted existence before him. The design document for a new class of spacehopper splashed across the hologram at eye level. His notes from the prior day blinked to the ship’s left. There were still so many alterations to make to these plans. “Don’t relay that one either.”

“She wants you to know not to be surprised,” it says, heedless. “That you have a date tonight at 1730 local time.”

Poe scoffed. “I’m way too busy for that. You and I both know that, buddy.” His schedule racked up before him in his mind’s eye. Every hour was accounted for, including that one. “What about our routine?”

Routines, he’d found, were important. Routines kept him upright and able to go about his day. Whenever he deviated…

Routines were what he’d resorted to so he could keep some semblance of his life intact.

Against his better judgment and even his desires, resentment built inside of him. It was easy, he thought, for Jess to push her way in, force herself into a space he hadn’t opened up for her. It wasn’t so different from how he’d been once. Back then, he, too, did what he felt was right. Consequences be damned, that was his motto.

The consequences damned him; that much was for sure.

It wasn’t like he couldn’t appreciate the sentiment.

It was just…

“I know you’re there, Dameron,” N-7 said in a tone that sounded suspiciously like Jess’s in delivery if not in the exact pitch.

Sighing, he ran his fingers through his curling, too-long bangs and glanced at the chrono. It was still early. He wasn’t willing to put up with this all day, not when he couldn’t disable Jess’s alert nor convince N-7 to disable it for him. Jess was persistent. She’d win if he didn’t take drastic action against her. “Okay, bud. We’re getting you down to maintenance.”

“If you believe that is necessary,” N-7 replied. It was a good droid, obedient, which in a lot of ways made Poe uncomfortable. He’d spent most of his adult life surrounded by droids brimming with idiosyncrasies. Their personalities felt, in a way (and oh, how some of them would hate the comparison), organic. It wasn’t that Poe thought that made them better, no. It was just that he knew just how droid technicians got rid of those quirks. It didn’t sit comfortably with him.

He’d probably have to fight to keep them from doing a mindwipe on it. And maybe that wasn’t fair of him. Assuming the Vet’s Retirement Org ever wanted it back, which they would, probably the same day Poe was no longer around to need it, that would be the very first thing they did to it. And here Poe was, practically inviting it to develop its own independent consciousness with no input from it or anyone else.

Still, he couldn’t do it. Not after what he’d seen.

As soon as they reached the bowels of the building, the bored woman holding court over the labs gave him one look and said, “Minewipe’ll take a quarter cycle.”

“No mindwipe.” Poe placed his hand on N-7’s gray-tinted chest plate. “It’s got all my important research in it.”

The woman sighed. Annoyed and bristling, she straightened up and leaned forward. “We can do a partial assuming you correctly partitioned out the data.” The way she said it, though, was such that she didn’t think he’d been smart enough to do that. And Poe was happy to let her believe it if it got him what he wanted.

Shrugging, he grinned, clueless. “I’m just an old, washed out flyboy, ma’am. Do I look like I thought that far ahead?” He raised his hands, open-palmed, in a gesture of contrition. “I know it’s a hassle and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” He would make sure of that. If he had to block every comm code not directly tied to his work here on Kuat, he’d do it. The point was to get some peace and quiet here, not find himself haunted by overbearing specters of his past. “Ensev can’t delete a message that got sent to me.”

The woman’s brow arched and her features took on a more curious aspect than before. That was preferable. Poe could work with curious.

“I have a friend who likes to cause me trouble from time to time.” He chewed on his lip. Just how far should he take it? Leaning against his side of the desk, weight heavy on his elbow, he added, “I think she likes embarrassing me.”

“That so?” the woman asked, sounding not terribly sympathetic, but amused at the least. “I guess I can see what I can do.”

Poe nodded, pleased. “Ensev, make sure she gets rid of everything from Jess’s comm address, okay?” He could only imagine how many messages there were that he and N-7 hadn’t yet triggered.

“Of course, Poe,” it answered.

Momentarily relieved, he stuffed his hands into his pocket, leaving N-7 in the care of the droid techs who kept the place running as well as it did.

Now to try to accomplish something with his day. And figure out a better plan than ‘lock himself in his office until Jess and Rey go away’ in order to avoid the date they’d set up for tonight.

Date.

Yeah. Right. He hadn’t been on a date in over a year and a half. And he certainly hadn’t had time for it before he’d washed out of the Republic Navy and the Resistance Navy in one bright, fell swoop.

The fact that he was sure it wasn’t really a date—not like that, certainly not, and not what he would have wanted anyway—didn’t change things. Even just a meeting with friends to catch up was more than he wanted from either of them. Both together was too much.

_You don’t even know if it will be both of them._

_Yes, you do, Dameron. You know_.

The point was moot for now. He did actually have work to accomplish sometime today and without N-7 to help him, it was going to be quite a bit more arduous than he might have liked. Performing calculations for one’s self was tedious. Having a droid there to do it for him had always been one of the upsides of having to keep N-7 around. He might not have liked being coddled by a droid day in and day out, but there were a few perks and that was the best one he could think of.

Leave it to Jess to upset that particular balance for him.

He hoped it was at least a difficult project for her to complete. It wouldn’t make him feel any better, but he could at least take some satisfaction from the idea that she’d had to work at being a pain in his ass.

*

The chime of his door sounded, startling Poe from a dream in which N-7 was berating him for missing a meal, for working too late, for sleeping too little and jogging too much. Its words were so copious and quickly spoken that they blurred together in one long diatribe that Poe couldn’t keep up with even if he wanted to. It didn’t help that the droid grew larger, too, towering over Poe as it continued to iterate all of the ways Poe was failing at his new life.

Not so new anymore. His new life had been going on so long that it was just his life now. One day, he might actually grow used to that fact, but clearly today was not that day.

Throat dry, tongue thick and heavy in his throat, he groaned. His lips felt chapped and his thoughts were a slow, sticky sludge inside his mind. The time between registering that he had a visitor and the act of pressing the button that would disengage the locks was strikingly long. Before, it wouldn’t have been this way. Of that much, he was certain. But this was the reality of his life now. His limitations boxed him in at every turn, growing bolder by the day in confining him. “Come in, come in,” he said, voice gritty. “It’s about time, Ensev.” Glancing at the chrono, he scrubbed at the shadow prickling along his jaw. 17:20. That was…

He looked up.

Instead of one gray protocol droid, two dark-haired young women strode in. Jess. And Rey.

Of course.

“Do I even want to know how you got in here?” he quipped, lighter than he felt. Anger threatened to strangle him. Resentment again stoked itself in the banks of that anger, flaring in fits and starts. It was all well and good for them to fly about the galaxy going wherever they pleased whenever it pleased them. This wasn’t who he wanted to be, this easily upset man that he’d become, but jealousy stung in his heart, a poison not easily extracted.

He felt it every time he looked out the window to see the latest, coolest ship coming off the assembly line.

“The usual way,” Jess answered, equally light. Something about it sounded brittle to Poe’s ears, but it had been a long time since he’d seen her. He didn’t have the right to make that judgment call. In a way, he hadn’t ever had that right. Before, he hadn’t needed to use his _judgment_ to know what Jess was thinking. “We asked.”

He didn’t point out that he didn’t remember being _asked._ The answer, he suspected, wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling as he might have liked. Assuming Jess gave him an answer at all. “How are you, Rey?”

The question wasn’t meant to be a pointed one, but Jess’s mouth settled into a frown anyway. Rey, meanwhile, looked fierce—and fiercely uncomfortable. She’d grown and changed even more since the last time they’d seen one another. The last time, he’d still been in the medbay on D’Qar and she’d been a Jedi Knight, utterly unflappable and so unlike the Rey he’d first met so many years ago. Apparently, she’d taken to civilian life in a way Poe hadn’t. “You’re looking well,” he continued, ignoring Jess’s glare. She wore a purple-dyed tunic. A thin leather belt was wrapped several times about her waist, accentuating the long, lean lines of her body and the strength it held. It looked good; she looked good. “Color suits you.”

He never much liked to see her in all that gray and beige and tan. It reminded him too much of the survival tactics that had kept her alive. Blend in and, for stars’ sake, don’t stand out in any way whatsoever. Standing out was not the Jedi way. Standing out led to something something dark side something.

Or perhaps it didn’t and Poe was merely projecting.

“Thank you,” Rey replied. Her eyes sparkled; she couldn’t quite repress her happiness at being here, he supposed. That made one of them. “You’re looking well, too.”

He rolled his eyes. “If dark circles and gray hairs constitute ‘well,’ then, sure. I’m certainly looking that.” He delivered the response with more snap than he might have liked. He’d meant for it to sound self-deprecating, not bitter, but the Force was with Rey; she could probably sense it anyway. It was perfectly likely she knew far more than he would have wanted her to about his situation.

Besides, the last time they’d seen one another, he had been looking pretty rough. Dark circles and gray hairs were an improvement on that.

“They do,” she answered, prim, “in my book at least.”

“You look like shit,” Jess added. “She’s just being nice.”

Rey smiled and, in the same way that Jess’s and Poe’s voices were brittle, that smile was, too. “I know how to be nice.”

“Don’t I know it.” Jess stepped forward and grabbed the back of one of the chairs across from Poe’s desk. Her fingers dug into the unforgiving padding of its surface, causing the fabric to squeak just a little bit. He didn’t wince at the treatment of it exactly, though perhaps he should have. In all honesty, he’d chosen the uncomfortable thing in the hopes that it would keep people from sitting in it for too long. She seemed to realize it, too, smirking down at the thing before coming around and dropping into it. “So. This is nice.”

“You’re mad at me,” he said, raising his palms, his elbows planted on his desk. “I get that. I do.”

He wasn’t entirely sure what he intended to say after that, but Rey proved a distraction anyway as she, too, took a seat. He glanced between them and realized he was very probably screwed. Especially because Rey also looked very interested in how he was going to justify himself to them.

Great.

Swallowing, he slapped his hands against the smooth, ancient wood. This, he hadn’t chosen. It was a gift from the drive yard staff when he’d first come here, the last acknowledgment he’d accepted from anyone regarding his work for the Resistance. As far as thank yous went, it was a good one. Or at least a useful one. Bowing his head, he scrambled for an answer that would assuage them and get them out of here. _If only N-7 was here, it might be able to help_. At least, they might actually understand the severity of the choice he’d made. His reasons weren’t frivolous, even if they were possibly cowardly.

“It’s been two years,” Rey answered. “We’re not mad.”

“Speak for yourself.” Jess, though with less bite in her tone than he might have expected. “I’m plenty mad.”

He swallowed and refused to allow guilt to wash through him. He’d made a hard call. It was just unfortunate that he’d had to leave some things behind. “I can see that.” Obviously. He wouldn’t have acknowledged it if he didn’t. “Why now?”

Jess crossed her legs, her booted foot weaving repetitive arcs near the edge of his desk. She didn’t resort to kicking it, but he assumed she was thinking about it. “Why not now?”

“We’ve been looking for you,” Rey said, offering the _kiseerah_ branch that Jess wouldn’t. So many things had changed. When did she find it in herself to be the negotiator of the group? That job had always—poorly accomplished, admittedly—fallen to him. Funny how things change. “You’ve covered your tracks pretty well.”

“Coming from the person who found Luke Skywalker, that’s quite the praise. Thank you. I’ll remember that the next time I go into hiding.”

A slash of light arced across the bridge of Rey’s nose as she tilted her head, catching the sun through the window. “Are you planning on it?”

He sighed. “Not particularly.” His fingers caught in the collar of his shirt, tugging at the stiff linen that had become something of a uniform for him. Not quite as official as the Resistance’s or the New Republic’s, but consistent all the same. “Gotta limit the space travel to emergencies only.” Which, in his world, meant trips back to Yavin IV to see his father. Though, as yet, he hadn’t needed to take any since Kes took it on himself to travel out to Kuat at least once a month as it was. ‘Just to check in on all the cool ships coming out of the place.’

“Good.” Rey’s smile brightened and grew bolder. “That makes it easy then.”

“For what?”

“For us to visit,” Jess said. Her words brooked no argument and even Poe could see that he had little say in this matter now. The truth was, he couldn’t leave and even if he resented them their freedom of movement, the cavalier way they decided to just come here, and the abrupt departure of this orderly life he’d spent so much time and effort constructing, he found himself touched, too. Seeing Jess and Rey hurt—they were a reminder of a past he’d never get back—but it was a good hurt, the kind that came with healing if he would let it. That much remained to be seen. “You never told us why you left.”

That, well, was true. And, he knew, wasn’t entirely fair to them. But he never told anyone except General Organa, who’d needed to know why he was mustering out just when the smoldering wreckage of the FO was coming down around the galaxy. She’d said, before that final push, that the hardest part was yet ahead of them. If they all thought defeating the enemy was difficult, they’d obviously never seen the challenges of rehabilitation and reclamation efforts. “Rebuilding is going to be hell on all of us,” she’d told them all just before the final battle. “And in some ways we failed last time. Let’s do it right this time.”

He—hell, everybody—had expected him to be there for it. General Organa’s right hand throughout the process, her most trusted supporter. Then he’d come back from all those final pushes with fevers and unexplained aches and fatigue like he’d never in his life felt before. A med droid had diagnosed him and that was that. The very last battle had seen him come through with some burns and bruises, a broken ankle above D’Qar as he’d helped take out the last of the FO’s Star Destroyers. Rey had taken his presence in the medbay for such comparatively minor concerns for granted and didn’t think to ask about anything else that might have troubled him. The mire of everyone’s concerns must have masked his own in the Force. Otherwise, he never would have gotten away with the bald-faced lie he’d told her. “I’ll be right as rain soon,” he’d told her, grinning through his heartbreak. He’d already booked transport off D’Qar under the guise of bringing news of the final battle and a debrief to the New Republic senate. He would miss her, miss them. It was to be his last act as a Navy man. Not that Rey knew that. “Tell Jess she did good.”

“Tell her yourself,” Rey’d said, confused.

He shook his head, swallowing back bile. This was bad; it _sucked._ But he couldn’t face them and he couldn’t stay here. “There’s no time. As soon as my ankle’s stabilized, I have to go. General’s orders.” His own orders, filtered through General Organa’s mouth. He’d begged for the assignment and the truncated time frame. He’d even used his diagnosis to secure her consent, playing on the guilt he could tell she, too, felt about this.

It wasn’t her fault, of course, and he’d have done it all again even so, but that hadn’t stopped him from using it anyway.

He still owed her an apology for that. One day, he might even give it to her.

Rey had nodded, understanding, maybe a little pitying. “Okay, Poe. Be safe.” A little wry, she’d winked and darted up to kiss him on the cheek. No doubt, she would have done something differently if she’d known the truth, but Poe was grateful even today for the normalcy of the moment. “We’ll see you back here soon?”

He hadn’t answered, not really, but left her with enough of an impression that they would see each other again in short order. “Go find the others,” he asked her. “Let them know, okay?”

Rey had every right to be upset with him, maybe even more of a right than Jess. That she wasn’t, well. It spoke a great deal to the strength of her character these days.

“Force be with you,” she’d said.

“Force be with you.”

He hadn’t been able to say any of the things he’d wanted to and meant. That he respected her, that she was incredible, that he’d have done everything he could for her and more. Jess… Jess knew a little bit better his regard for her. They’d been together a long time. And though he’d never broached the topic with her, he felt she knew he cared for her. Just as he knew she cared for him. Squad mates couldn’t lie to one another the way most other people could. And Black Squadron had always been closer than most, at least in Poe’s experience, though Rapier had come close, would have been the same if they hadn’t been split between different squads once they’d joined the Resistance.

While the med droid worked on Poe, he’d watched Rey wind her way through the jubilant, celebrating crowd. Maybe he hadn’t really believed that was the last he’d see of her; as sad as the parting made him, he didn’t feel any sense of closure from it.

“Why’d you leave, Poe?” Rey asked, more urgent this time. He could see the strain now, the feeling of abandonment that she tried to hide. She’d changed so much, but some wounds still hit home more accurately than others. Maybe that was why Jess was so mad. It wasn’t just Jess he’d hurt. It was Rey, too.

“I have…” The words tried to glue themselves to his throat, stay hidden and unsaid. Like a talisman, if he didn’t speak it, he didn’t have to act like he had it. Here, nobody knew for sure, though some speculated that he had some sort of problem they weren’t privy to. Given the constant presence of N-7 at his side, he could never entirely avoid the question. But they didn’t know what it was. The people who worked for the drive yards were curious people, but more than that, they knew boundaries. Living on a station that ringed a planet, large but not large enough, the workers here valued their space and privacy. “They diagnosed me with Bloodburn.” He still remembered the droid’s name who first spoke the word, but it was easier to pretend there was no specific being attached to it. _They_ made it less real. This way, it was easier to pretend. “Before the last battle. I couldn’t stay after that.”

Jess’s features crumpled and she hunched forward. For the first time since she’d stepped into his office, she didn’t look pissed as all get out. “Bloodburn?” Her voice was a whisper, nothing more than a hinting version of her normal loud blusterings. “Shit, Poe.”

Heat flared across his face; his eyes, prickling, watered enough that he had to look toward the ceiling and blink a few times. This, this right here was why he hadn’t been able to stay. This was unbearable. This was everything he’d fled halfway across the galaxy to avoid. Fuck, it hurt. A boulder’s weight pressed against his chest, threatening to crush him with how much it agonized him. Even more than the Bloodburn, it pained him.

She lunged across the desk toward him. He flinched, thinking she was going to hit him, a well-deserved consequence for his deception, but instead she threw her arm around his neck and pulled him into a fierce hug. Straining forward, he grabbed hold of her, too, his hands fisting in the tight stretch of her leathers. The scent of fuel still clung to her hair. As he pressed his forehead against her neck, he allowed himself to miss her, to want her. He hadn’t allowed himself this desire before, but now he wasn’t her commanding officer. He wasn’t even in the chain of command. He was a civilian. He couldn’t even fly.

They were as far from one another as they could be.

He wanted her and he wanted Rey and there was nothing he could do except hold onto Jess, the desk pressing painfully into his stomach. Lifting his eyes, he looked at Rey and gestured her forward. All the while, he hoped she couldn’t see the sheen of his watering eyes. She came around to his side and pressed the warm length of her arm across his back, leaning in and hooking her chin over his shoulder.

“You fucker,” Jess whispered, vehement, so low he wouldn’t have heard it if her lips didn’t brush against his ear at the same time. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Jess,” Rey answered before he could, so sympathetic that a fresh flood of heat cascaded through him. It humbled and embarrassed him that she felt it necessary to shield him from this small, well-earned attack. It humbled him and embarrassed him, too, that he’d missed this change in her. When had she become so understanding and patient? That wasn’t the Rey he knew, but it was a version of Rey he’d always known could have been. She was good-hearted. It didn’t surprise him at all, not that he’d never worried about her. The good-hearted could turn cold as easily as anyone else, perhaps even more easily, and Rey had faced more than her fair share of trials.

“No.” Jess pulled away, socking Poe lightly on the arm, as physical a display of her frustrations as she would allow herself. Rey stepped back, giving Poe a bit of space he didn’t know he needed until she did. Still, Jess kept speaking. “Why? Did you think we’d—”

“It had nothing to do with you.” He nodded in both of their directions. “Or Rey. I didn’t think you’d do anything.” _You’d have been perfect_ , he thought. _I didn’t need that. I still don’t need it. Or want it._

“Then why?”

Throwing up his hands, he turned away and stood, pacing in the space behind his desk and the floor-to-ceiling transparisteel behind him. Rey stood sentinel nearby, her arms crossed, quiet. He felt her gaze on his back, curious, but patient. Patient enough to wait him out anyway. Meanwhile, Jess huffed at him and shook her head. She wouldn’t wait for an answer. Before she could demand it… “I don’t know,” he said. And that was true after a fashion. He didn’t know why he’d done half the things he did since then. He wasn’t happy. He didn’t feel better. He’d let himself be caged and all for what? This? What good was it when the people he cared most about were furious with him or worried for him? “I can’t tell you.”

Jess’s eyes narrowed. Her mouth twitched until she bit the plush stretch of her bottom lip. She was thinking and Poe knew better than to interrupt her while she was doing that. As much as he wanted to defend himself more. _It was hard, Jess. You try getting diagnosed with a disease that takes away the thing you love best. You try looking at the damned night sky knowing you’ll never see it from up close again unless you want to risk a violent bout of sickness and a significant shortening of your natural life_.

All of those things were accurate, but they weren’t true. He could’ve stayed on D’Qar or chosen Chandrila or any of the other hubs of New Republic activity. He could have found a place in the capital. It didn’t have to be here and he didn’t have to be isolated.

But how to explain to them how much he hungered for what they could still have? What would be thoroughly rubbed in his face every time he looked at them, at his fellow pilots, even the command staff who never set foot in a ship in all the time they were with the Resistance save when they came in and when they left again after the last conflagration. Being seen as he was now by the people who knew them then… he couldn’t—he _couldn’t._

Here Jess and Rey were though and Poe’s world wasn’t ending. He was still here; he was strong enough to bear up under the brunt of their attention. And there was even something approaching relief at facing them now after all this time spent worrying about it.

Jess shot a look at Rey, who shrugged and nodded. The years had only brought them closer, that much was clear, and Poe couldn’t be anything except happy for them. They deserved closeness, the both of them, and they’d always been good around one another. Even back during the war, he could see that much. “Are you—?”

“What?” Jess snapped.

“Happy?” His gaze slid between them. “Are you two happy?”

A complicated series of emotions crossed both of their faces. Their heads tilted simultaneously and both chewed their lips, thoughtful. “We’ve been happy,” Rey settled on, an answer and not, both and neither at the same time. Perhaps she was still a Jedi deep down inside, not that he saw a lightsaber nor even the staff variant she sometimes carried back in the day. That was the kind of equivocating he expected from Luke.

“Good,” he also settled on. “I’m glad for you both. Genuinely.”

Jess smirked, a mean little thing, but just as quickly as it appeared, it evaporated, replaced with a shamed frown. “It would’ve been better if you’d stuck around. Or at least told us where you were.” She spoke with more intensity, but less fervor. She was calming down; he could see as much. Not that he’d wanted her to do so. Just because he had Bloodburn didn’t mean she had to pull her punches, metaphorically anyway. He might’ve preferred if she did should she decide to genuinely deck him. “That would’ve been good.”

“I know.” He shrugged, helpless, unsure what else to say, feeling backed into a corner of his own making. “I’d take it back if I could.”

Jess’s hand flapped through the air. “Save it. I don’t think you would’ve. Pilots, we’re all the same.” She sighed, sounding so much older than any of them were, so much wearier. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would’ve done in your situation.”

Only then did Rey move, reaching to take Jess’s hand in hers and squeezing. It was a touching display of solidarity, of strength. Poe wished he had the right to such a thing. But he deserved nothing from either of them, except perhaps a return to the frigid peace he’d enjoyed before they showed up here, unwanted and unannounced.

Were N-7 here, it could relay the lie for what it was: a lie. They were neither unannounced nor unwanted, but it was easier to treat them as such within his own thoughts. Not that he expected them to go away now. Given their tenacity, he expected he’d have to fly halfway across the galaxy again to find respite from them.

“You left before we could—” Jess’s hair fell across her face as she shook her head. Her braid whipped around her shoulder and down her back. “—we always intended to…”

Poe stopped and looked at them. If he took a few steps toward them, he didn’t notice as much. “Yes?”

“You were my CO,” Jess said. “I figured once this was all done… Rey and I could—”

A breath caught in Poe’s throat. Danger, danger, danger, his thoughts told him, but not in so many words. This was exactly what you wanted to avoid. Reaching for the desk, he leaned against it. A little lightheaded, he wasn’t sure if he should blame his condition or the suddenness with which his world tilted on its axis.

“You had to know how much you mean to us,” Jess continued, unaware or unconcerned about Poe’s crisis of conscious. Or maybe she was just pushing through it to get to the other side, say her piece and have done with it like ripping a bacta patch free. “Even back then. We couldn’t do anything about it, but we always…”

“I believe Jess mentioned in her message that you had a date approximately—” Rey’s eyes flicked to the chrono. “—twenty minutes ago. What she means to say is we’re all very late to it.”

Regaining his equilibrium, Poe frowned at them. “You want to take me on a date?”

“It was Rey’s idea.” Jess pointed rather vehemently at him. “I wanted to kick your ass halfway across the star system and back.”

Poe couldn’t help but grin. It was laughable, this whole encounter. Laughable and ridiculous and only Jess and Rey could have come up with it. And only Poe, despite everything, would push himself away from the desk and say, “Sure. What the hell, right? What could possibly go wrong for any of us if I say yes?”

Something like Jess’s old sense of humor returned to her. “Can’t be any worse than some of the missions you led us on.”

Poe laughed then, hard enough to nearly choke. He coughed a few times into his fist and carefully didn’t look at either of them. This was stupid; it was dangerous. He shouldn’t say yes to them, drag them down into this with him. And yet, here he was, doing just that.

His only consolation was knowing they’d likely push and prod and keep at it for as long as possible. They were tenacious about the things they cared about. It was what made them such great fighters and leaders in the Resistance. It also made them inconvenient as hell to avoid. They’d have worn him down eventually and he would have been glad for it. They could be his courage for him in this. “Just a date?”

Jess nodded. “A date. Casual, even.” She narrowed her eyes. “I’m not even sure we want to keep you after the shit you’ve pulled.”

This, this felt normal. It felt good even. Teasing and joking, there hasn’t been much of that in his life lately. With just him and N-7, fun was in short supply. Even if Jess was pissed at him and remained so until the end of time, it would be interesting having her around again. And Rey, too, of course. “I have been a massive asshole, haven’t I?”

“The biggest,” Jess confirmed with a vigorous nod.

“Uh huh.”

“You owe us.”

“I really do.” He frowned at the chrono. Surely, N-7 should have been fixed by now. Not that it mattered as things turned out. “Look, hang tight. I’ve gotta go get my droid. Then I’ll see how I can make it up to you. I know a reasonably good restaurant exists somewhere around here.” Not that he knew from personal experience, but he’d heard about it from others.

Maybe it was about time he try it for himself. Even his doctors had said he could indulge every once in a while. He’d been scared to do it before, but it might be worth it with them sitting across from him to share his time and his life. That sounded nice. He wanted that.

He thought, perhaps, that he could have it now.

“Sounds good,” Jess said, Rey echoing the statement with her own agreement.

Poe clapped them both on the shoulder and pulled them close. “Great. Then what are we waiting for?”

“You,” Jess said, pointed, if more pleased now than she’d been before.

“Oh? Well,” He said, daring to press a kiss against each of their mouths, brief and exploratory. They both, he found, smiled against him when he did so. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of that and he hoped they didn’t either. “I’m done waiting.”


End file.
